


Grey and Holy

by GoreCorset (CorsetJinx)



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 05:21:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6891823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorsetJinx/pseuds/GoreCorset
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The most important lesson is to carve your songs into ocean worn bones beneath the Iron Moon of the Month of Ice. A look into the mind of the Whaler called Mouse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grey and Holy

The crash.

The slap.

The sigh.

The waves.

The music of the Void called to her. Reaching out to her. Just as it had once before, and probably would again. Even here, so far from home. So far from the place where she first heard the song of the sea, of the Void. But she had been a girl then, unaware of the world. Unaware of what it meant to the women of their family. The crash, slap, and sigh of the waves.

The waves lapped at the edge of the entrance way so far away, the crash, slap, and sigh of the water echoing throughout the naturally formed cavern. Temple. It was music to her ears, a constant song. A reminder of the past, of years that had slipped through her fingers like the sun warmed sand. It was her cradle song as a child. It would be the song of her funeral, some day. It was the song that haunted her dreams when sleep had finally taken her. And it had haunted her in the Void when she had stood at Daud’s side, ready to face off against the witch. The sound had been somehow comforting. Somehow terrifying. 

It was only natural to form a dozen or more complicated feelings surrounding such noises and memories. The crash, slap, and sigh of the waves.

The redhead took a deep breath, clearing her head with the heavy salty air of the sea. The crisp chill of it filling her lungs. The scent of the sea always brought back so many memories. Reminding her of olden days, following her mother down to the temple in the sea. If it had been any other time of year - or some time in the past, she might have run down the weather beaten foot path to the cave’s entrance, and ever so carefully navigated her way toward the back where a shrine might wait for her small hands, her heart felt prayers, and mystified eyes.

But she was older now. She was wiser now. She was different now.

Her footsteps were nearly silent, quiet as a breath. Violently green eyes swept across the dark stone, over the beaten foot path. Callus fingers graced the cliff face briefly. She moved as a predator would, like a big cat stalking it’s prey, so very distant from the moniker she had adopted among her brethren. Quiet as a mouse, moving unseen among them.

Mouse she had been with them.

Elizabeth to her mother, her father. To the dead.

She had been born during the Month of Ice in a small village on the edge of Morley. Her father was a simple farmer throughout half of the year, and a whaler during the better of the season. Her mother carved runes and made charms for the needs of their village. She was a mother, wife, midwife and wise-woman just like her mother before her, and her great mother before her. They embrace the birth of their daughter, although her mother had once said that she must carve her life in ice and stone. In flood waters and the red tide.

How right her mother had been.

The waves crashed against the stones near her feet, spraying water along the path, the walls, and her person. She paused at the entrance of the cave, gazing in to the dark depths. Somewhere in there, deep in the darkness, the faint purple glow of the shrine waits to embrace her. Just as it always had. A tingle threatened to nibble at her fingers, urging her onward to a place like home. There would always be a seaside cave, a shrine deep within. Put together by human hands or otherwise. They weren’t all shrines to the being called the Outsider, no, some were for older gods. Ancient eldritch deities that came before, that would come after. They grew as humans did.

As she had.

She grew quickly, learning everything she could from her mother. She worshiped at an alter set deep in the hillside, tracing pasterns with mud and her saliva into the runes cradled on the stone alter. She never questioned the long purple draperies that were connected to the old shrine. The shrine older than she was, older than her mother. She would set out jars filled to the brim with fluttering fireflies. They glowed purple, she swore, when no one was looking. Her childhood was sweet and simple, the bone seller’s daughter. 

Life had been so easy then. She would follow a step shy of her mother along a path like this. Feel the ocean spray stinging her sun-warmed skin, the water droplets tapping the freckles and scars. Now the salty spray sank into her tight trousers and loose blouse. It was only slightly nippy here, the weather cooler than the past few months. It reminded her almost of home during the Month of Songs. 

Just like that day…

They had come during the Month of Songs wearing their stiff coats and bronze masks decorated with a terrifying scowl. They cornered her mother and forced her to repent. They burned her for not forsaking the black eyed Leviathan. 

She can still taste her mother’s ashes on her tongue, can feel the heat licking at her skin. She had cried so much back then. During the burning time. Without thinking she had run back to the black eyed boy’s shrine, collecting the rune she had painted with earth dampened with saliva. She had broken it on the shrine. Had swore that she would never carve a bone again, would never worship at the altar again.

But… time had changed things. As stone must change in time, so too had she.

Her gaze slowly rose from the water shaped pathway. Following the long billowing curtains. She had whittled away at bones for years. Had traced her fingers along their sea worn surfaces. It had been strange at first, after leaving home, finding bones washed up on shorelines. As if she were being teased by the Ancient Ones or that boy. Bone carving was in her blood, and they knew that. They wanted her to know that.

When she had been found hiding in the Flooded District with her carving knives, the scarred man had not killed her as she had expected. Instead he had offered to help her survive. To give her shelter so long as she worked for him. And who was she to say no? The plague had come upon the city, death was always at hand. And she knew at once that he had been called by the song of the sea. She knew because she could hear it.

The crash.

The slap.

The sigh.

The waves.

And he knew that she was a bone-witch. A bone seller. A bone carving priestess. He hadn’t blinked an eye. Hadn’t seemed to care at all. It was strange to her, to have someone just up and accept her. After what had happened in Morley…

But she stayed. And she had become loyal to him. Loyal enough to remain ever at his side. He was her leader. And she was his sword, or at least one of many. Her hands had been stained with blood, the blood of the targets he had sent her after. She had felt the Void gnaw at her each time she called upon the gifts Daud had shared with them. It was strange, while she had sought to distant herself from the Outsider, she was always being dragged back. Just as she was now.

She would have to return some day, during the Month of Ice. With the Iron Moon high in the sky, she would carve her song into ocean worn bone just as her mother had before her birth. This time she would be able to follow tradition…

“If you’ll let me.” She rested a hand on the wall of the cave, finally coming to a halt. She looked around the great maw, the violet lights gracing the walls and glittering over the waves that rolled in. Here, yes, there were thousands of songs hidden in this place. Thousands of songs yet to be carved or those that have already been carved. Magic still resided within these walls, in this water. Magic older than anyone living on this continent.

This holy place.


End file.
